


You Can't Possibly Understand How I Feel

by quadrant_advisor



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, I'm rating Teen for violence, Soulmate AU, but it's not really graphic just a little uncomfortable, soulmates gain each other's injuries and feel each other's pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-28 04:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6315226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quadrant_advisor/pseuds/quadrant_advisor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The more that Judy's soulmate is hurt, the more she thinks about him, worries for him, plans for the day when they eventually will meet.</p><p>Nick doesn't think about his soulmate much at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“ _How did this happen?_ ”

Nick nearly flinches at the anger in his mother’s tone. “I don’t know! It just showed up.”

“Was it at school? Were you in a fight again?” Her voice is still stern, but grows preoccupied as she twists Nick’s face between her paws, examining the three scratch marks down his cheek from every angle.

“No Mom, I swear, nobody touched me this time.”

Her face sobers, and now she turns him to look her in the eyes. “Was it one of the teachers?”

Even still trapped between her soft pads, Nick shakes his head back and forth emphatically, shock clear in his expression. “Mom, I promise, nobody hurt me. I didn’t fall down or anything. It just,” he shrugs, the look in his eyes confused, “appeared.”

The kindly fox stares at her high-school aged son (when did he get so tall?), and sees the truth in his eyes. Slowly, realization dawns on her. She releases his face, takes a few steps back, and sits heavily on their old, worn down couch.

“Mom?” Nick sits down next to his mother and places a paw on her arm. “What’s wrong?”

She looks at him, and smiles. Nick feels his whole body relax. His mother reaches over and ruffles the tuft of fur between his ears. “You, my boy,” she says, “have a soulmate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nick's backstory has been edited slightly to fit the timeline I want, sorry about that.
> 
> So, my first posted fic! That's exciting. I thought about finishing this guy up and posting it as a one shot, but I wanted to start getting it out there and I'm a very slow writer, so this is what we're doing instead. I'm gonna post the next one of these little chapter-lets right now, since it doesn't advance the plot, and then I'll be posting them once a day (at least until my backlog runs out.)
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys it!


	2. Chapter 2

Soulmates are not uncommon, but are certainly not the norm. Only about one in every ten animals will have one. No one knows what causes the phenomenon, or why it may have evolved. Of course there is scientific speculation, something about sympathetic brain waves connecting and causing physical manifestations, and there are religious explanations, stating that some people are really just two halves of the same soul.

All anyone really knows, though, is that for certain individuals there is another mammal out there who, quite literally, feels their pain. If one soulmate has a headache, the other follows suit. It one gets a bruise, their match wonders where that sore spot came from.

If one of them dies, they both go down.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time that Stu and Bonnie Hopps notice dark spots blossoming on one of the kits in their newest litter, they rush her off to the hospital, her crying the entire way. The doctors tell them not to worry, these things do happen, and send them home with a very upset and bruised baby.

When little Judy, still not old enough to stand up on two feet, gains a myriad of scrapes on her knees and the pads of her hands, her concerned parents get out a pair of tweezers to remove the small bits of gravel that should surely be embedded in the cuts. They find none, and simply wrap her wounds, warning their near infant that she really should take it easy in the future.

When their poor daughter wakes up from an afternoon nap with a scream, cradling an arm that bends the wrong way and sobbing aloud, “It hurts, it hurts,” they realize what must be happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who left bookmarks, kudos, and comments! Those really made my day. Looks like some people were not fans of that last exposition chapter. Sorry about that, and thanks for the criticism! I hope the rest of the fic doesn't dissapoint.


	4. Chapter 4

Judy wishes that her soulmate would be just a little bit more careful.

He sure must fall down a lot or something!

In her mind, Judy begins to imagine that her soulmate is some kind of klutz. At first, the idea doesn’t appeal to her, so she thinks about it harder and conjures up the image of a sweet but bumbling bunny, a romantic and air-headed man whose head is so high up in the clouds that he forgets what it is he’s doing with his feet. She likes this much better, and when she’s drifting off to sleep at night she imagines what his dreamy smile might look like.

After the incident with Gideon Gray, Judy, 9 years old, stands in front of the bathroom mirror and gently touches the three marks resulting from Gideon’s swipe. She thinks back on all of the injuries that she sustained in her childhood, and imagines for the first time that they may have been purposefully inflicted.

Judy breaths deeply, and then winces. She brings up a paw and feels around her ribs, which have been sore for a few days now. Thinks about it critically. How would a person’s ribs be injured this way, except if they were hit? Someone had done this. Someone, for some reason, had attacked the man who Judy would one day love more than anyone else in the world, and had left the both of them with this pain.

She takes another deep breath, and forces herself to follow through without flinching. Her soulmate is _hers_ , and nobody is allowed to mess with him. Someday, she’ll be able to protect the both of them from anyone who might try to hurt them.

Well. Now she _has_ to become a police officer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The movie theater was having a half off day for students, so I went to go see Zootopia again (because I am a silly person) and also I bought a poster from Walmart and my children are on my wall and they are beautiful so anyways to celebrate have another chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

Nick never graduates from high school. After the factory accident that kills his father, he drops out, tries to get a job himself. His mother doesn’t approve, but can’t really argue. She can’t support him alone.

Of course no one will hire him. He’s a fox.

He wonders, for just a moment, if his alleged soulmate is doing any better than he is. It isn’t something that he spares much thought for. It’s a nice idea, that there’s someone out there with whom he syncs perfectly, someone besides his parents who could look past his exterior and find something inside to love. 

But really, there isn’t time for fantasies, or for a soulmate he’ll probably never even meet. Nick Wilde has his own life to contend with.

Finally, he does it. He applies for work at the same factory that his father worked for, and is accepted, maybe even as his dad’s direct replacement. The idea makes him sick to his stomach, but as long as he can hold down a job, he can help keep himself and his mother clothed, housed, and fed, and that’s all that matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not extremely happy with this chapter, but hey, we're getting places! A huge thank you to everyone who reads this.


	6. Chapter 6

When the hunger first sets in, Judy doesn’t really notice. She’s a middle-schooler now, a grown-up girl with responsibilities, the primary of which is getting good enough grades so that someday she can be accepted into the police academy. She eats her lunch, and when afterwards her stomach is still pinching she writes it off as nerves for a test in her next class.

By dinner time Judy is ravenous, and scarfs down casserole while barely tasting it. She eats far more that meal than she usually would, and finds herself with the strange sensation of a stomach which is too full, but which still seems to have a gnawing emptiness in the center. She tells her parents that she doesn’t feel well and goes to bed early that night.

By morning it’s so much worse.

Breakfast doesn’t help, and so Judy tells her mother about the problem. Her mother gasps in happiness and says, “Oh Judy, you must be about to become a woman!” She takes her out to buy her first feminine products and explains how best to use them. Judy is unable to share in her excitement. She hopes against hope that it won’t be this bad every time.

The ache within her grows, but no blood comes. She ends up staying home, curled around the pain in her middle. It occurs to her to wonder if her soulmate is doing alright. Shortly after, the problem goes away, and Judy doesn’t get her first period until several months later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get another chapter 'cause it's done and I feel like it so here ya go. Also, thank you so unbelievably much to everyone who comments, I smile like an idiot when I read them.


	7. Chapter 7

After four days without food, Nick steals some. It isn’t even hard. To himself, he ironically attributes this to his “natural sneakiness” as a fox.

A small economic downturn is all that it takes for the least popular kind of mammals to be quickly laid off, including both himself and his mother. Once they have no legitimate way to support themselves, it’s easy for Nick to become angry with the system, to be able to justify doing whatever it takes 

The only reason he lets it go on so long is that he knows how his mother would feel about giving up on living honorably and honestly. She had always made that the most important thing in her life, proving that she was more that what they said. In the end, he lies to her. He tells her that he earned a couple of bucks by offering to do some odd jobs, and she nearly cries as she takes what he offers.

Nick swears to himself that he will not let her go hungry again.

The days without nourishment take their toll on her, though. The illness comes swiftly and without mercy. Within the month, she is gone.

Nick is truly alone in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So about the length of the chapters:
> 
> This is a stylistic choice that I made when I first started posting, and really I'm inclined to stick with it. Not just because I kind of like how each chapter focuses on a single idea or event, but also because it's a huge destresser for me. Usually I don't write anything, just because it takes me so unbelievably long. I get stuck easily and spend way too much time on the wording of individual sentences. This short length motivates me to write and post, simply because I know I can do it. So in short, I wouldn't write any other story like this, but for this one I like it, and I'm sorry that means that you just get these tiny snippets whenever I update. Thanks so much to everyone who reads anyway.


	8. Chapter 8

Nick gets careless, because honestly, why _should_ he care anymore? He steals not just what he needs, but because it’s fun to see what he can take. Eventually, he’s caught stealing from someone he shouldn’t have been. Instead of finding himself in deep trouble, though, he finds himself an in. He becomes a link in an underground chain that connects him to as many unsavory opportunities as a young fox could possibly want. He buries himself deep in the art of deception. It’s not a smart life, it’s not a safe life, and it’s certainly not honorable, but those things never had any real value anyway. Now that he’s grown careless, he stays that way.

Unsurprisingly to most, things don’t go well for him. He makes too many bad deals. He gets lucky with Mr. Big, who lets him off with a warning to never come back after the incident with the rug. Other men are much less forgiving.

He takes the worst beating of his life after a financial scheme he’s been working on goes belly up. His partner skips town, leaves him to take the fall from their angry investors: namely, one Barry Steel, an elephant with a temper. Steel gathers up some friends and corners Nick outside of his apartment, has his buddies rough him up pretty badly. When Nick’s on the ground, shaking and gasping for air, Barry calls off the goons. Slowly, deliberately, he puts a foot down on top of Nick, nearly completely covering his relatively small body. He adds weight, pressure, and Nick realizes that this is it, this must be when he dies. The breath is all squeezed out of him, and eventually he hears a loud _snap!_ and feels the pain sear through him. At this, however, Steel lets up. He leans his head down next to where Nick lies prone on the ground and says, quietly, “Don’t ever cross me again.”

The group of mammals laugh jovially as they walk off, leaving Nick broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another section that I'm not really sure how I feel about. I seem to have a bit more trouble with the Nick parts than the Judy ones. On a different not, I can't believe the response this fic has been getting. All of those hits and kudos are amazing, and I'm so grateful to every person whose been reading this.


	9. Chapter 9

Judy almost doesn’t make it to college the year she graduates from high school. She’s a bit busy, what with being hospitalized and all.

She’s out in the field, helping her parents harvest the summer crops before she goes off to school, when she feels the first sting of pain. She feels a flash of annoyance at her soulmate for whatever he’s gotten himself into this time, and then reminds herself that no, that’s not fair to him, certainly he doesn’t _want_ to be hit.

Then she spasms and drops the basket she’s holding, crouching down and trying hard to breathe evenly through the scorching hurt in her nose, eyes watering. From there things just get worse.

One of her brothers finds her, curled in on herself and whimpering. Judy hears him call for help, and then, for the first time in her life, she passes out from the pain.

The doctor’s verdict: Broken rib, broken nose, and bruising so severe that it needs need to be watched for further complications. The prescription for all of this is merely pain medication and bed rest. Judy wonders as she takes her pills whether her soulmate is able to benefit from them as well.

Judy is discharged from the hospital only a week before college classes start. Her parents, of course, try to convince her to stay home, put it off for a semester. Unluckily for them, stubbornness has always been one of Judy’s best qualities. Luckily for them, an appeal to the school keeps her out of the dorms and living at home, at least until her injuries heal. She heads to school with reminders to “not jostle your ribs please, sweetheart” and “stay safe, for goodness' sake” ringing after her everyday. She doesn’t admit, even to herself, that she kind of likes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the very late posting of today's chapter. Things have been pretty hectic this weekend. Tomorrow will probably be similar, so please forgive if there's an absent or late update. In any case, thanks for reading.


	10. Chapter 10

Nick decides that he wants to live. It shouldn’t be all that big of a revelation, but for some reason it holds a lot of meaning for him. Before, he’d simply been existing in the moment, with no thought as to how his actions might affect him. Then a very violent wake up call proved to him that he was indeed mortal, that death was possible at any given moment.

So Nick, with new resolve, makes some changes. He pulls himself out of some more unsavory groups, pays off whatever debts he has, cancels a con he’d been in the process of working on.

Of course, legally becoming a part of the system, begging to work for some business where he’d still be put down and disrespected, is out of the question. He starts work on a plan, one that will keep him alive, even comfortable, while straddling the boundaries of the law. As long as he does so harmlessly, no longer cheating or stealing, he should be able to stay safe.

He finds a partner in Finnick, also a fox (albeit a different species) whose getting a bit old for the game and is trying to pull out, too. Together, with a bit of trial and error, they arrive at the ultimate scheme, the big plan, the con to end all cons.

Which just so happens to be the Pawpsicle stand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goodness guys I am so so sorry for that unannounced hiatus. I just had a crazy week, where I was really busy and felt kinda crappy at the same time and this fic fell to the wayside. Hopefully now that I'm writing again we'll be back to semi-regular updates, though I'm loathe to make any promises. In any case, thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

Police Academy is a bit what Judy dreamed it would be like, but mostly a lot more miserable. She’s perfectly fine with academics (she had no trouble getting her criminal justice degree), but it turns out that working on the farm was not adequate physical training for what they now want her to achieve. She’s just so much smaller than the rest of her class. She wants to scream at the unfairness of it all, but of course that’s what they want her to do; her instructor, the other trainees, every single one of them is watching her, waiting for her to say “I can’t do it” so that they can mock her when she has to throw in the towel. She is not going to let that happen.

And so she works harder than any of them. If she’s smaller, that just means she has to run faster and jump higher. Every morning she runs as hard as she can for as long as she can, and after classes she heads straight to the gym. She’s up probably later than is good for her at night studying, and every chance she gets she tries to go through all of those infuriating obstacle courses. She’s dunked in freezing water, she’s blasted with sand, she’s beaten and bruised and sore, so unbelievably sore, everyday.

Judy is no stranger to pain, however, and in this case the hurt in her body isn’t a sign of the suffering of someone else, someone she cares about. It’s just a side effect of improving herself. As she begins to see the fruits of her labor in better strength, stamina, muscle coordination, you name it, she relishes stretching out her aches every morning.

Her goals change as her abilities do. When she’d realized how tough her training was going to be, she had just wanted to graduate. Now, she knows that if she pushes herself just a little bit harder, she could be top of her class.

Her only reservation is her poor soulmate. As far as she can tell, he hasn’t been in a fight since she started college. She hopes that he’s not taking everything she’s putting the two of them through _too_ badly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter today as an apology for that long break. And thanks for the nice comments I got on the last chapter, those were really sweet and made my day.


	12. Chapter 12

What, exactly, is the benefit of having a soulmate? Because Nick is starting to think that he’d rather not have one at all.

The first morning that he wakes up feeling like he’d run a marathon the day before, he’s confused. Selling Pawpsicles is not particularly strenuous work. Could there be some kind of illness that’s making all of his muscles ache like this? He looks so pathetic that the elephant store owner of the day easily sells him a jumbopop, but his arms feel so painfully overused that he drops it, and mushy frozen ice spatters all over the floor.

It’s a couple of miserable days later when Nick remembers his soulmate. It _has_ to be them, doesn’t it? What, _exactly_ , do they think they’re doing? Because it feels like they’re ridiculously overworking themselves, which is a bit of a problem for him.

There’s really nothing he can do about it, though, and so Nick simply adjusts. He figures out how to not flinch every time he moves, and he goes on as normal. With hot stabs of pain come similar stabs of resentment against whoever it is that he’s gotten stuck with as a life-long misery partner, but he learned a long time ago to not show how things get to him. Besides, if his soulmate knew anything about him they’d probably be just as bitter about the situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some people were pretty excited to see Nick on this side of the soulmate relationship. I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!
> 
> In other news, I've started posting a fic in another fandom. Don't worry about that cutting into this story, though; until this fic is complete, it's my priority, and I'll try to keep updates timely. That one's more of a "when inspiration hits" writing for now. Having said that, if you're at all interested in Homestuck I'd love for you to try reading that other fic! It's kind of my baby.


End file.
